Hurry Autumn, Part 2

A Crisp New Shirt

It is the first chill evening,
and I pull it 'round me
like a crisp new shirt
made from the billowy cotton
of an autumn blue sky.

From the woodline,
a lone crow calls back summer
and I listen to his plaintive cry
for things now gone or faded
with a dying season.

He must forgive me this year;
I cannot sing dirges for ghosts
that rattle on the wistful breath of October
or call them back
when their shadows tease
the corner of my eye.

Not this time,

when there are songs to be sung
in the cadence of whirlwinds changing
the look and feel of my world.

As the equinox moves closer,
the sun moves away
with the shortened day;
I bid those ghosts a soft
goodbye

and pull the shirt closer,
revel in its cool newness
and twirl in a skirt autumn-dyed
with all the colors of life.

Mara, 2003